


Perseverance

by 14Doctors



Series: Fallen Children [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 14:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/14Doctors/pseuds/14Doctors
Summary: Long ago, two races ruled over Earth: Monsters and Humans. One day, war broke out between the two races. After a long battle, the humans were victorious. They sealed the monsters underground with a magic spell. Legends say that those who climb the mountain never return.Between Chara and Frisk, there were six others to fall into the underground. This is the story of the Fourth.





	1. Home

Bruce sat in the shade of the big tree in the park. It had become a habit to sit there and draw every Saturday. Occasionally he would look up from his notebook full of scribbles to the groups of kids playing tag. He only recognised one of them, a slightly older kid who would wave at him sometimes. Bruce had gotten to the park later than usual so Alex hadn’t seen him. 

He had just returned to his sketch of the park when someone stood in front of him. It was one of the larger kids in his year Eli. Behind him stood two more equally large kids Carter and Leo. He looked back down intent on ignoring them in the hopes that they would leave him alone. It didn’t work.  
“What’re you doing all alone?” If Bruce ignored Eli’s tone he would sound concerned but the disgust was hard to ignore. When he started to get antsy Bruce replied,  
“Drawing.” Eli scoffed and motioned to Carter on his left. He reached out to grab the notebook. Bruce moved quickly out of the way.  
The boys took a step forward so Bruce took a step back. When they stepped forward again bruce turned and ran. Behind him, Bruce heard them laugh and chase after him. 

Bruce knew he could outrun them but the question was where to go? His parents were out so he couldn’t go home and the only friends he had were maybe Alex who was back at the park. He was out of the park and on the street dodging the few people walking around with practised ease. He could hear the boys having more trouble with yelling and complaints behind him. He ran through the list of places he could hide or that they were unlikely to follow and came up short, the only place he could think of was the mountain and no one was allowed up there.

Still running through the town and out of options he turned left and ran for the mountain. The group of boys, likely not noticing where he was headed, followed close behind.


	2. Mt Ebott

As Bruce got closer to the mountain he checked back and saw the boys lagging behind but still following. By the time he was climbing the mountain he allowed himself to slow down. He wasn’t sure why the mountain was off limits, it was easy to climb even with his tiny arms. His grandma had warned him of evil creatures living beneath the mountain but mama had said that wasn’t true. He kept climbing but in the back of his head, his grandma’s words repeated themselves.

He stopped climbing for a minute and looked down. He was higher than he thought he would be by this point but the boys were still following. Looking around for a place to hide he was surprised to find a cave opening a bit further up. 

The cave was dark and small. Figuring that the boys wouldn’t follow he walked a bit further in and sat down. After a minute or so of catching his breath, Bruce heard stomping. He looked up just in time to see two of the boys run past the entrance to the cave. Holding his breath he waited for the third to follow but he didn’t. Curious and confused Bruce got up and headed for the mouth of the cave. 

Just as he reached the mouth the third boy scrambled up with bloody knees. Bruce tumbled back and hoped that he hadn’t been seen. He had.  
“Found ‘im,” He shouted at the boys and began to walk towards Bruce. Bruce clambered to his feet and backed up. He carefully stepped back eyes locked on Leo. As Eli and Carter entered the cave he took another step back and felt the ground around his feet crumble. Before he could register what had happened he was sent tumbling down.


	3. Ruins

Laying back and looking up Bruce saw the three boys looking down the whole he had just fallen down. Eli and Carter were laughing but Leo looked concerned. As he pulled himself up the boys left. He hoped they were going to get an adult but doubted it. He went to open his notebook only to find that he wasn’t holding it. Looking around he found in just out of arm's reach under the golden flowers. He grabbed the book and picked one of the flowers. After writing a quick description of the dark grey room he was in he pressed the flower between the pages. 

He looked up at the hole once again. There was no way he could get back up there even if he knew how to climb walls. With nowhere else to go he walked down the hallway and through the large ornate door. 

The next room was equally dark but the ornate door at the end was purple rather than dark grey. Walking through it he had to blink rapidly at the sudden change in brightness. The room was brightly lit and very purple. There was a pile of leaves in between two staircases leading to the same place. He grabbed a leaf and pressed it into his book before moving on. 

The was very little in the next room. Bruce tried to open the door and walk straight through but it wouldn’t budge. Looking around he saw a plaque on the wall. “Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both not walk the middle road.” Figuring it was a riddle he wrote it down and tried to guess the answer. With no idea where to start, he looked around the room for a clue. There were seven switches he saw on the floor, four on the outside and two in the middle. Stepping on the middle switches the door opened. 

He walked through into a much larger room The first thing he saw was a sign. “Stay on the path.” The clue was simple enough that he didn’t need to think too hard. He wrote the clue down and started walking. The path was a pale shade of purple, separating it from the darker purple of everything else. The path split twice to switches on the wall, he pulled both and heard a click. 

He turned after pulling the last switch and found himself staring at a frog. It was a very odd looking frog, he had never seen anything like it in any of his books. He looked at it curiously and it looked back. When nothing else happened he began sketching it. When his eyes flicked up to look at it while he sketched he saw an abundance of fly like creatures appearing around it. He took a step forward to get a better look when they began flying at him. He dodged them to the best of his abilities and ran. 

He kept running until his path was blocked by another puzzle. There was row upon row of sharp spikes surrounded by water. He knew he couldn't swim that well and didn’t want to ruin his book so he backtracked in search of clues. On a wall, he found another plaque. “The western room is the eastern rooms blueprint.” He wrote the clue down as well as a compass. He entered the western room and draw the path underneath then used the map to cross the spikes safely. 

The next room went on forever. The longer he walked the more uncomfortable he got until he started running again. He ran straight into something. After the weird frog he was starting to believe his grandmas warning about monsters under the mountain and whatever he ran into wasn’t helping. It was small with arms legs and wings, if he believed in them he would say it was a fairy. It looked upset that he had run into it but he didn’t stay long enough to apologise, running away before it decided to attack him like the frog. 

As he ran he saw more red leaves, it was kind of weird as it was summer but maybe under the mountain the rules were different. He stopped running when he saw a strange pattern on the ground. He put one foot on the pattern and the ground gave way. He did it again on the patterns besides it, the ground gave way there as well. There was nowhere else he could go. He looked through the holes and saw a bed of leaves. Carefully he slipped down the hole. The room beneath had two doors, he went through the right door and continued on. 

He got through six more rooms and three more puzzles before running into another monster. There were two this time, blocking his path. One looked like his grandma's jello ad the other a very larch cockroach. Pellets and smaller cockroaches flew at him. He couldn’t dodge them all. A few of them hit him and it hurt far more than it should of. He ran at them and jumped over the weird jello monster. Scared and confused he kept running. 

The rest of the puzzles were pretty easy to solve and no more monsters appeared letting him slow down and think. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been down there but it felt like forever. His parents were probably concerned by now but they wouldn’t look for him here so he had to get out on his own. He didn’t know where the underground ended if it did at all. He dreaded the idea of going back through the underground and trying to get out through the hole.

With nothing left to do, he kept walking, slightly faster than before. He reached a crossroad with the option to go forward or left. He went to go forward but as he moved forward he saw a gigantic white monster walk through the door. They locked eyes, in the back of his mind Bruce thought it looked like a goat. Before he could give it too much thought he ran left. He stopped momentarily at the sight of a house, surrounded by the same red leaves and a single dead tree. He looked back and saw the monster coming up behind him. Quickly he ran into the house. 

The house looked surprisingly normal all neutral colours and nothing out of place. He wanted to explore but didn’t want to be caught. After a moment of deliberating he ran down the stairs just as the door opened.

The basement was the same as the rest of the underground had been, purple and dark. It was strangely long empty hallway. He stopped at a large door. It wasn’t as ornate as the earlier one but still more than any he had seen before. Hearing footsteps he pushed the heavy door open and stepped through.


	4. Snowdin

The door shut behind him with a heavy thud. Bruce stared in wonder and confusion at the snow-covered forest he had entered. This shouldn’t be possible but here it was. It was unlikely he was hallucinating as he could feel the cold winds giving him goosebumps and the snow getting in his shoes and making his socks wet. He rubbed his arms in an attempt to warm up and slid down against the door. He breathed deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth until his heartbeat began to slow down. Once he no longer felt like his heart was about to leave his chest he got his notebook and pen out. The front was a bit damp from the snow but he could still write on it. He filled the pages with the things he had seen and how he got where he was. When he was done he started walking, hoping the impossible forest of snow would end soon. 

It didn’t. The snow continued soaking into his bones and worst of all, socks. The scenery didn’t change much until a crossroad appeared. He kept walking forwards too cold to explore. The forest eventually fell away to the background but the white ground stayed. Oddly enough his footprints didn’t stay the path behind him was as clear as the way forward. 

He saw another monster in the distance. It looked like a snowflake and he could just hear it practising jokes. He sat on a dry patch of ground and tried to sketch it. He wasn’t a great drawer but it got the idea across. While the joking snowflake was distracted he crept past and continued onwards. It wasn’t long before he saw something else. He wasn’t sure if this counted as a monster, it was a dog in armour with a sword. The breed looked like a Pomeranian but much larger, on its back legs, it looked about the same size as Bruce. He didn’t have time to draw it however as it noticed him and started barking. Bruce ran but he was cold and the dog was much faster even on two legs. He climbed one of the trees until he was out of reach of the sword and looked down. The dog kept yapping up at him but didn’t do much. It didn’t look that dangerous, just like a puppy that wanted attention but the sword was sharp. Carefully Bruce lowered his arm until he could pet the dog. Its head grew in length and bruce scrambled further up the tree, it was definitely a monster. He was safe where he was so he took some notes and waited. The monster dog eventually got bored and wandered off. Bruce waited a few more minutes before climbing down.

The weird forest got worse and the snow was traded for ice. He slipped and slid everywhere but mostly on his butt. He had to be careful in some places so as not to go sliding off the cliffs but he made it in one piece. There was a weird rock that connected two cliffs. He crossed it carefully hoping it wouldn’t crumble under his feet. 

On the other side of the bridge was what looked like a small town. He hid behind the sign and took in the sight. It was full of monsters going about their daily lives. None of them looked especially dangerous but neither had the frog but he still came out injured. With no way out he kept his head down and walked through. No one seemed to pay much attention to him, he thought it might be because they had never seen a human or maybe they were just busy. As he got to the end of the small town he heard someone call out something that seemed a lot like 'human'. He froze for a second then ran. 

Fog and snow blocked his vision for a moment before passing. He looked back and saw only that small section was foggy. He frowned at it before continuing to run, he couldn’t see anyone following him but that didn't mean there wasn’t anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that took me a while to continue writing. Is anyone still reading this?


	5. Waterfall

The impossible forest stopped and Bruce along with it. He stared confused at the cave within the cavern. He looked up just before the mouth of the cave in search of the ceiling. His glasses didn’t work that far and the roof was so high and dark he couldn’t see anything. He walked on determined to think about when he was safe at home.

Water fell from the ceiling in a steady pour lit up by the glowing stones within the walls and ceiling. The water wasn’t falling on him so he managed to stay dry until reaching a pond at the bottom of a waterfall. With no way around he carefully lowered himself into the water arms high to prevent the pages of his notebook getting wet. The water came up to his shoulders as he stepped slowing across wary of decline and his lack of swimming ability. Luckily the floor stayed level as he crossed but pulling himself out in heavy wet clothes was a struggle. 

The wall of grass higher than head was randomly placed and made little sense. As he pushed his way to the other side he could feel bits of grass sticking to his hair and clothes as his glasses got blurrier. 

He came across another plaque different to the ones he had first seen, older and more deliberate. He wrote the inscription down “When four Bridge Seeds align in the water, they will sprout.” It wasn’t a riddle like before just simple instructions. He drew a quick sketch of the seeds both before and after they had sprouted. They reminded him of lily pads but magical. He walked across the bridge with his arms up in case they gave way and reached a room with more water blocking the way forward. 

There was another plaque in the top right corner also not a riddle “If an error is made, the Bell Blossom can call Bridge Seeds back to where they started.” He had no idea how that worked and decided to test it. He pushed one seed randomly into the water and rung the bell. Seconds later the seed returned to its original spot with no clear movement. He wrote his findings down and began planning where he would put the seeds. It took him a few minutes but he eventually found the correct position. 

The next room was beautiful, he could stay there all day. Small glowing stones in the dark room gave the appearance of stars. He drew some of them making up constellations and stories and enjoying the silence and safety. The safety didn’t last long however as the sound of clanking metal drew near.

He looked up as a creature covered in armour entered. It wasn’t that large kind of like a teenager but the armour was intimidating. It clanked loudly as it got closer following him as he backed up against the wall. As a glowing blue spear manifested in its hand bruce ran past them. The wall had opened and he ran through.

On the other side was a wooden deck over the top of dark water. There were some more plaques on the wall that he desperately wanted to read and study but the clanking was coming up behind him.

He ran down the deck until it ended. The clanking monster walked up to him again with a spear in hand. He stepped back onto the lone square that lay on the end only to almost fall off as it floated away. He got down onto his knees and grabbed the wood tightly and watched as the monster got further and further away. Once the platform stopped he carefully climbed off and ran as the platform went back. He wondered idly if it would hold the weight of all that armour or if the monster had another way.

The deck continued on the other side as he ran across. He started to slow down and catch his breath as a spear landed inches from his face. He looked up and saw the monster on the path above him. How it got there he had no idea but he couldn’t think about it as the monster conjured another spear. He ran faster than ever before dodging the flying spears to the best of his ability. He wasn’t always fast enough and he arms and legs steadily grew covered in cuts where he failed to dodge in time. He ran into the tall grass at the end of the dock and huddled up. He held his breath as the monster walked past through the grass not noticing him. He waited there until the monster was long gone and his breathing was back to normal. He scribbled a quick description of everything he had seen and continued on, much slower and trying to ignore the painful cuts. 

More of the pretty stars covered the ceiling and the water here was a beautiful cyan colour so much nicer than the terrifying black. He walked through the maze of colourful water and dark grass drawing a map as he went. He passed some weird jelly creatures but he passed them fast enough that they didn’t try and fight. 

He found another plaque and with no one chasing him he could stay and read it. He didn’t understand it very much, something about SOUL’s, in all caps, and human fear, but he wrote it down anyway with some guesses about what it meant. The next room had more water and a path slightly covered in water. There seemed to be some creatures in the water but none got close enough for him to see them. 

The next room had more waterfalls and a singing monster. He hummed along quietly as he stuck past, the song was very good. The room also had another plaque with no connection to the previous one “the northern room hides a great treasure,” He wrote it down and checked out the room. It held a piano and another plaque talking about a song. He tried to tap out a song he knew but the keys were weird and played a different tune. 

They walked on, passed a statue of what looked like a goat and into an odd room with a clearly broken roof. Water dripped down consistently in a pattern not dissimilar from rain. He kept his notebook under his shirt in an attempt to keep it dry. He could feel the cold water soaking into his bones as he hurried through hoping it would end soon. The rain didn’t end but the path did. A high ledge blocked his path forward. He scrabbled against the smooth surface in an attempt to get a hold and pull himself up. As he struggled, falling down every time he jumped, he heard the sound of splashing puddles and clanking metal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments are always appreciated.


	6. End

Bruce struggled faster trying and failing to climb the wall through perseverance alone. The clanking of metal got closer and closer as he became more desperate. The clanking stopped and he knew if he turned around the monster would be there. He turned slowly curling in on himself. He was right, there the armoured monster stood, taller than him with its spear at the ready. He stared at it in the eye and bolted passed pant legs soaking as he splashed through puddles. 

He tried to ignore the pounding of his heart, the splash of puddles, the water covering his glasses and blocking his vision and the clanking of metal getting ever closer. He thought if he could outrun it and hide in some of the grass further back he would be fine, he was faster than the monster anyway. 

Too late he remembered the spear. It hit him in the back with immense force sending him flying forward onto his face. His back screamed in pain as he struggled to get up and keep moving. He succeeded and kept on but he was much slower now, every step causing more pain. He ran around a corner just dodging another spear thrown. The next one grazed his arm, no blood came despite the deepness of the cut. He wished he could study it but he couldn’t. He turned back slighting and threw his notebook and pencil hoping to at least confused it and slow it down. Surprisingly it worked and he was able to keep running until he reached the glowing water.

He didn’t get much further. Another spear was thrown and hit him in the back in the same place as before. He blacked out and there was nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished! Would it be better if I finished the series first or rewrote some of the older entries as they weren't great?


End file.
